Craftomation 101 News

Hey mates,

Since it's been less than a month since the previous edition of these diaries was out, we haven't introduced much content to the actual build… On the other hand, there have been a lot of discussions, drafting, and decision-making. Some exciting news is waiting for you below!

[h3]Is it Early Access Yet?[/h3]

The Early Access release was looming for months now, but there was no particular date for it, as we were analyzing your feedback and considering the amount of features we want in the game by the time it heads to the shelves of Steam.

After many hours of meditating over the calendar, discussing stuff both internally and with our friends in Valve, we finally agreed on the date, which is… not to be disclosed yet, naturally: we want to be entirely sure everything's in place before we make the big announcement. But rest assured, that there is a date nailed to the wall sometime around our studio.

And it's probably safe to say that you should follow the news especially closely in the mid-winter. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

[h3]Getting Warmer[/h3]

Lots of other stuff is nailed to our physical and metaphorical walls these days, as picking a release date also implies having a list of things to be done. And boy, do we have a list! The top item on it would be to create a proper (though temporary, reserved for the EA stage) final goal for the game.

One of the options was to have the players build a rocket to send it to other planets for further expansion… But we decided that this task would probably be too big for the current stage of development. Maybe we will return to it later, but for now we agreed to stick to the core theme of the game: terraforming.



Terraforming in general was on our minds after we studied the most recent feedback. Apparently, many players (ourselves included) are starting to get somewhat frustrated in the mid-late part of the game: new mechanics and new lands emerge, but the player still has to expand their base by placing new Bonfires along instructing Craftomates to fill them with fuel, over and over again.

Looking into how we could make the gameplay less repetitive, we've drafted a couple of ideas which we will be experimenting with over the next couple of months.

One way to make things easier would be adding one item every decent game must have: dynamite! It will temporary unfreeze surrounding areas, allowing you to harvest some vital resources without crafting additional Bonfires.

(Actually, it might not be dynamite in the end - we're discussing the visuals of this device right now: if you have your own ideas, let's discuss them on Discord, shall we?)

Another step would be to return CargoMate to its’ initial form. Some players were disappointed with the temporary nature of Craftomate that we introduced a couple of months back. Apparently, this way it is too cumbersome to include Cargomates into perpetual processes.

Now they're here to stay, and what's even more exciting: we'll allow Craftomates to take out stuff from a Cargomate's backpack on the go! If you were looking for a mobile food dispensary, this might be you chance to write a program for one:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

But perhaps the biggest issue that we were looking forward to get to for a long time - is an interface to help the players better manage Craftomates. We want you to be able to tell one robot from another without having to hover your mouse over them, so we'll think on improving the coloring mechanics first.

After that, we'll start working on an interface for sorting Craftomates by various features. Also, we want to introduce a feature that would display the current path of a Craftomate upon hovering mouse on it.

[h3]What’s Next?[/h3]

As of right now, Ivan the programmer is taking a little vacation, to prepare his mind for the final leap into the release. But before he went away, he rolled out a couple of important QoL features, including nested tooltips (which you can even pin to stay on the screen):



And that upgrade for ‘Find & pick’ node that allows you select a source for a Craftomate to pick items from:



Once Ivan gets back, he will start off with making counters (finally!) appear in the game, and then proceed to making that epic robot-management interface. This is going to be a fun winter!

See you again in a month with more Craftomation-related goodness!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1724140/Craftomation_101_Programming__Craft/

In the meantime, here's another bunch of things that you can do to help Craftomation 101 see the light of release ASAP:

• Share this post with a friend who might like Craftomation 101
  
• You can even scribe yourself into the game's credits: most of our games’ localizations are community-made, and we now have a spreadsheet for those who are willing to help us translate the game into their native language
  
• Buy the supporter pack to gain access to exclusive WIP stuff and full-time access to the devs’ ears and minds
  
• And of course, play the free demo on itch.io or Steam, leave us a comment, or come to Discord and discuss your experience with us
  

Hey mates!

The fall is the time for harvest here in the northern hemisphere, and ours has brought a lot of fruits! Watching you enjoy Craftomation 101's playtest was full of excitement and insights! We've made important improvements to the game and started implementing very interesting ideas. Let's talk about that, but first - check out our updated trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you happened to have participated in our playtest in September, we thank you a great deal, and you're forever in our hearts! More than 500 people joined us that glorious week, which led to fixing a spectacular amount of bugs, and making the difficulty curve smoother. We had spent a lot of time redesigning the map and creating a comprehensive sequence of quests, and we were so glad to find out that over 60% of the players who made it to the late part of the game have pushed it to completion!

After making a series of thweaks based on your feedback, we'll likely put polishing the map aside for some time, so we could finally start working on something truly epic: adding new commands to the program editor, and improving existing ones. More on that a bit later though.

[h3]What's New[/h3]

If you missed the playtest, we still have great news for you: Craftomation 101 Demo got a nice reboot as well! It is know in sync with our current internal version, only with limited content. That means, that all the new graphics, some of the new commands (such as ‘compare’, for one) and all the bug fixes will appear in demo at the same time we roll out our in-house update!

We have updated the main menu art to celebrate the occasion, too:



That also includes a proper saving system, with autosaves, multiple save slots and whatnot, along with localizations update! By the way, we have not one, but two options to choose from when selecting language: you can either pick human (official or community-made) translation, or the one made by chatGPT 4. We're making a game about robots here, so it only made sense.

We'd like to take an opportunity to thank brave community translators (a special kudos to roigrek!), and invite you all to join our Discord - to share your thoughts about the game, help with translating it to your native language, or just chat with us about anything.

Oh, and you know what? We also have achievemnts now! Unfortunately, Steam won't allow us release them in the demo, but they'll be waiting for you by the time we hit Early Access! There's a total of 31 achievemnt at the moment, with 15 of them being secret. And here are the others, non-secret ones:



[h3]What's Next[/h3]

Many new things are on our collective table at the moment, as the Early Access is looming. We didn't tell you that, but we have picked a release window already - still, we need to make some arrangements before we're confident enough to make it official. But that does mean that there's a lot of new content to be added.

We'll start small: Alex the artist is now working on making a neat border for the map, so it wouldn't look as if the game world just ends with black void anymore. Now it ends with impassable soulless icy moiuntans:



But most importantly: the new commands! We have been speaking about ‘smart find’ (and its associates) for a while now, but now it's happening for real: an option to choose whether an object should be picked from the ground, natural source or a Storage is almost there:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

(The buttons are placeholders, don't mind them for now)

We have also expanded the features of ‘compare’ command, so players could select an object for comparing, making this command more useful:



And after that we'll start working on something real cool: counters will be introduced to the game! Those of you familiar with programming will understand, how it changes everything. For those who are not, here's an example: you'll be able to instruct a Craftomate to check whether the amount of items in a cell is more, equal or less than X. So they'll know when a Fire is fueled enough or when they have produced enough food to be able to switch to another task.

This (and other things that we're drafting at the moment) will make managing robots even more complex, so the next big thing for us would be creating an interface for navigating the ranks of your little silicone helpers.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1724140/Craftomation_101_Programming__Craft/

So many things to do! We'd better get back to work, and get back in a month with more exciting details! In the meantime, here's another bunch of things that you can do to help Craftomation 101 see the light of release ASAP:

• Share this post with a friend who might like Craftomation 101
  
• You can even scribe yourself into the game's credits: most of our games’ localizations are community-made, and we now have a spreadsheet for those who are willing to help us translate the game into their native language
  
• Buy the supporter pack to gain access to exclusive WIP stuff and full-time access to the devs’ ears and minds
  
• And of course, play the free demo on itch.io or Steam, leave us a comment, or come to Discord and discuss your experience with us
  

You probably saw the "Add to your wishlist" message several times here on Steam. But what are all the developers asking it for, should you click that green (or blue) button, what is it?

You can add the game to the wishlist right here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1724140/Craftomation_101/

Or you can do it on the game's page just under the video trailer, like this:


[h2]For players[/h2]
If you have a game on your wishlist you will:

• Receive an email on the release day
  
• See news about the game published by its' developer here on Steam
  
• Get notified about the discounts by email
  

You can always remove the game from your wishlist.

[h2]For developers[/h2]
The developer will know nothing about players who added the game to the wishlist. No email, no account name, no ability to send you a message - nothing. The only thing visible for the developers is the total number of wishlists
This number is a thing that can help the developers understand how much players are interested in the game, and how many additional features and level of quality they should consider to work on.

• 1,000 wishlists - almost nobody knows about the game, probably players don't want it or never heard about the game
  
• 1,000,000 wishlists - players absolutely crazy about that and expecting something really really good from the developers
  

[h2]Now you know what to do[/h2]
If you are interested - consider adding the game to your wishlist right now, it's like hitting the subscribe button on social media.
If you are not sure yet (or you waiting for the discounts) and want to see how the game is being developed to decide later - adding to the wishlist is the best option to tell Steam algorithms that you want to be aware of news and updates from the developer.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1724140/Craftomation_101/

P.S. If you want to talk to developers directly, suggest some features, and get more involved in the making of the game - Discord and Steam Discussions are great for that. Or let's chat down below if you have anything to discuss!

Hey mates,

Just a quick reminder: Craftomation 101 Playtest is live on Steam, and everyone is welcome to play! Gain access on the game's Steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1724140/Craftomation_101_Programming__Craft/

Scroll down the game's Steam page a little, hit the playtest button - and you're good!

The version we've got for this very special occasion is almost twice as big in content as the demo! Here's a brief reminder of what is new:

• New robot: Cargomate
  
• Extended organics: there's now a Sulfur source on the map, which is perfect for growing a new kind of plant - Moss (and Mushrooms, too). Check out this article to learn more;
  
• New building: a Brewery turns Wood, Moss, and Mushrooms into nutritious ales for your Craftomates! Just add some hot water;
  
• Reworked graphics: new Command Center visuals, new Ancient Ice visuals, a whole new array of new visual effects
  
• Interaction between Craftomates: copying, pasting programs, switching each other on and off, and waiting - more on this in this article
• Program editor improvements: you can now add and delete functions, and functions can operate with variables. A bunch of new commands for checking on organics and whether a Craftomate is buffed were added, too
  
• New, more deliberate map design
  

Enjoy the game, and please, let us know what you think of it! Every bit of feedback helps us to make the final game more appealing to you! You can use the in-game feedback button (look for an icon with a bug), drop us a line at [email protected], or come hang with us on our Discord server.

The playtest will last until September 18! Have fun :)

Ahoy, mates!

We know it's been a while, but hey! We bring you awesome news. Remember all that new content we've been talking about so many times? Well, you're about to check it all out by yourselves!

In order to make sure that Craftomation 101 hits Early Access in its best shape, we need to know what you (yes, you!) think of the game in its current state. That is why we will conduct an open playtest on September 11-18! You can sign up right now to get notified by Steam once it starts (scroll down the game page to see the button):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1724140/Craftomation_101_Programming__Craft/



Here's a brief list of new features that will become available to you in less than 10 days:

• New robot: Cargomate… Well, it's technically not an independent kind of robot… read more on that below;
  
• Extended organics: there's now a Sulfur source on the map, which is perfect for growing a new kind of plant - Moss (and Mushrooms, too). Check out this article to learn more;
  
• New building: a Brewery turns Wood, Moss, and Mushrooms into nutritious ales for your Craftomates! Just add some hot water;
  
• Reworked graphics: new Command Center visuals, new Ancient Ice visuals, a whole new array of new visual effects
  
• Interaction between Craftomates: copying, pasting programs, switching each other on and off, and waiting - more on this in this article
• Program editor improvements: you can now add and delete functions, and functions can operate with variables. A bunch of new commands for checking on organics and whether a Craftomate is buffed were added, too
  
• New, more deliberate map design
  

To celebrate the upcoming playtest, we've freshened up the screenshot gallery on our Steam page: a great excuse to compare how the game looked a year ago vs. now:





The beta we're working on for the upcoming playtest is a huge content leap from what is currently available in the demo, so save the date, come one, come all!

The most recent update also stirred many internal discussions and made us reconsider some of our original ideas. Let's talk about that, shall we?

[h3]Cargomates: Heavy Duty[/h3]
Cargomate seemed like a great idea when we came up with it earlier: a huge loveable robot for carrying heavy stuff. But what would that stuff be? Our initial idea was that Cargomate would be moving Storage units full of items around (which could not be moved otherwise without emptying them first). But when we added the robot to the game and started experimenting with it, we found out that it was not making the game more fun to play.



It happens all the time in the lives of video game devs: a feature might seem awesome while it's in your head, but actually playing it might be the direct opposite of fun. Another thing we got rid of was introducing different kinds of fuel for Bonfires that we mentioned last time: they just turned out to be not fun.

However, Cargomates wasn't exactly that case: moving Storages around made sense, it just didn't require a dedicated robot for that. Therefore, Cargomates were demoted: now any Craftomate can turn into one by brewing and consuming a special Primordial Ale in the Brewery.

We also reworked the animations of picking and dropping stuff for Cargomates, to make them niftier. Check it out below (feeding a battery to the robot is a placeholder, they will be required to drink ale later):

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Introducing so many ales called for some optimization tools. Therefore, we added a command that allows checking whether a robot drank ale recently. A great opportunity to program yourself some bartending robots!

[h3]What's Next?[/h3]
The playtest, of course! We're now trying hard to implement some of the most important features in modern game development: achievements and cloud saves. After that we get to adding that ‘smart find & pick’ command we've mentioned before.

Sign-up for the playtest, and see you in less than 2 weeks!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1724140/Craftomation_101_Programming__Craft/

Here's another bunch of things that you can do to help Craftomation 101 see the light of release ASAP:

• Share this post with a friend who might like Craftomation 101;
  
• You can even scribe yourself into the game's credits: most of our games’ localizations are community-made, and we now have a spreadsheet for those who are willing to help us translate the game into their native language;
  
• Buy the supporter pack to gain access to exclusive WIP stuff and full-time access to the devs’ ears and minds
  
• And of course, play the free demo on itch.io or Steam, leave us a comment, or come to Discord and discuss your experience with us